


Come A-Knockin’

by TheCokeworthCauldrons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Mischief, Omniscient Dumbledore, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Secret Relationship, Sevedora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCokeworthCauldrons/pseuds/TheCokeworthCauldrons
Summary: Tonks only wants to be loved out loud, despite dating a master of secrets.





	Come A-Knockin’

Tonks Side-alonged with Severus right before the Order meeting started. This was the first time since she acknowledged him - and him her - that the two of them so much as brushed arms without camouflage. Now they stood, hand in dry, stained hand, in front of Number Twelve, willfully ignoring the fear that someone was already watching them through the windows.

Inside could be an ambush and a shitshow waiting to happen. It’d be gift-wrapped in thrown heirlooms, and Molly Weasley would beat one or both of them over the head with her hand-knit disappointments. A for Adultery? Maybe  I for Irreverence.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Severus spat harshly, looking over his shoulder. His neck tendons stretched, stressed, and while he grumbled, Tonks had one of those slippery thoughts that came as solutions to the problems of Snape’s personality.

 _If I bit him, like a vampire,_ she thought, _I’m about 40% sure I can infect him with some goddamned enthusiasm._ She squinted and considered if the payoff was worth the odds. She made half a move before she was discovered.

Severus had turned back, and scowled, leaning away.

“What’re you doing,” he accused, having suddenly found the small woman on her tiptoes, inches from his face. Instead of answering, Tonks kissed her teeth, foiled, and looked down at their hands.

It felt nice to feel his fingers wrapped around hers, in open air, ready to be pointed at and condemned. She gave the width of his palm a squeeze. He stiffened, then uncoiled, and, begrudgingly, squeezed back. Perfect.

Tonks enjoyed pushing the limits of their coupling.

Months, almost a year, she had spent playing cat-and-mouse. Severus, contrarily, played cat-and-cat, hissing and knocking her affections to the floor. Eventually she took the hint, and gave him his space. She apologized, and left him be. Honestly, she was deliberating on an exit strategy, when she felt his two-finger tap on her turned shoulder. Those same fingers beckoned her out the back door, with thin nails and rough pads.

Because as much as she liked pushing, it seems Severus, under specific conditions with certain persons, gave a good push himself.

Sometimes, in meetings, her little finger would pepper his knuckles with tiny touches. He would have to hold her hand in his to stop it, draping his sleeve over them like they were doing something indecent. It was done with a naivete she never quite expected to be real. But she looked up every time he caught her being pesky, and every time, faintly, he was a-blush at the virgin scandal of it all. It lit her up all over.

This was how they worked.

Now the secret of them was tired and heavy, and she stopped bothering him, just a bit. And of course he noticed, and of course he tapped, with those familiar fingers, and raised that damn eyebrow, and demanded to know what was wrong through a confrontational silence.

So she confessed her wants, and he went pale with the endless, new possibilities for disaster.

This was her last push, she promised him, knowing that them dissolving before a rule they couldn’t break was a very real and oddly depressing possibility.

“I changed my mind,” Snape mumbled. She didn’t move more than a foot from the knocker.

He grabbed her elbow and tried to lead her off the stoop. She pulled her arm back and raised her fist, primed. Tonks held his eyes in hers, for once very quiet.

Severus looked at her, annoyed. He sighed and rubbed his jaw. He ground his teeth when he was nervous, which she cared less about than making her point.

“Why,” he started, which she knew meant, “Why does this need to happen?”

He had officially over-asked that question.

She didn’t really like to tell him what she thought: that, in a second, between beds to lazy Sunday mornings to night walks making a thrill of holding hands, she remembered when seeing a wanted poster in a storefront that they were inescapably at war; and she felt her relationships shouldn’t be as desperate and relentless as her Auror patrol.

She wanted a hallmark, so that if he died by next year, she could ask for the comfort she’d surely need without explaining Everything. Or if she died first - Merlin forbid - he could have a time to point to, with his stupidly long hand, and a moment to stand on and say, “That and she was mine.”

“I’m not gonna beg you,” she said, lowering her fist. This worried him, she saw. He frowned.

Something flashed in the corner of her eye. Tonks quick-schemed, in a learned Slytherin fashion. Sighing, she draped herself onto Severus, tucking her face in his neck. He hesitated, then wrapped an arm around her waist - then two! - bunching up the fall of her bright robes. All in public, for the world to see.

She wiggled. He swore, and pulled his collar from her teeth.

“What the hell,” he hissed, covering her pinching mouth with his palm.

She growled, grinning and latching on to the calloused skin. Someone walked up to them from the side, and the someone cleared their throat, and good Lord, she heard it, but Severus didn’t even notice because he was busy, confused and amused, trying to shake her off.

They were being witnessed. She nibbled at his cuffs and whined loudly that they tasted like sulfur. His neck was shiny where she bit it.

“Serves you right,” said Snape, winding his arms back around her to pin her own arms to her sides. “Troublemaker,” he huffed.  

She had raised her hands again to cause mischief in his hair, which he hated. And she squirmed, restrained and happy, wriggling when his knees bumped her thighs, slipped fingers up his sleeves to tickle up his clothed forearms, and wow, was he furiously out of sorts.

“I hate this,” Severus protested, holding down what probably seemed like too many limbs to make sense of.

“You don’t hate me,” she teased. “You _like_ meee~!”

She shoved her head under his chin. He spat out her hair and squawked.

“Ahem. Pardon the intrusion.”

Dumbledore paused at the bottom of the doorsteps, more than a little starry-eyed. Her otherwise occupied Snape fumbled to correct them. Tonks refused to be corrected. She stayed defiantly entangled on the doorstep, just as she happened to like it.

“Good evening, Headmaster,” Severus tried. She snorted and was told to hush.

“Wotcher, Headmaster,” Tonks greeted. One of her legs was shoved between Snape’s, while she rested on his hip and hugged his ribs. Snape practically wore her while, behind Dumbledore, the rest of the Order began Apparating in.

“For the love of,” Severus groaned, astonished. They watched their message spread over the gathering crowd. Somewhere in the multitude, a Weasley shouted.

“Oh gods,” her partner whispered, realizing the scope of his fuck-up. “Agh, _fuck you_.”

Tonks laughed heartily into the shocked silence.


End file.
